Latin America’s leading business communication consultancy uses Dropbox Business to collaborate with clients and to enable its employees to work on the go, leading to savings in time and money.

MZ Group's key results

Increased productivity due to sync speeds

Increased IT savings

Greater control over sensitive client information

THE CHALLENGE

Streamlining communications

Serving as a one-stop shop for corporate communications, São Paulo-based MZ Group has grown alongside its more than 600 clients to become a leader in the field. But, as the company expanded to offices across Brazil, and in Asia and the US, executives realised that its own office technology was holding it back from being more agile. Files were stored on internal servers, requiring constant investment in infrastructure, hardware and software. It also made it hard for support teams to collaborate on the same documents in real time. And when employees needed to access documents remotely, they needed to go through a VPN connection. “Due to security and internal systems, the connection was slow” says Rodolpho Zabisky, CFO of MZ, which provides investor relations, PR and digital communications, among other services. “There were also many conflicted copies with employees accessing the same file”. After testing other solutions, MZ decided to go with Dropbox Business. The solution’s sync speed and ease of use were key factors, says Alex Souza, IT Coordinator. “It’s enough to create a login and send it to an employee, as the platform is easy to use and doesn’t require hours of training, which saves time for the IT group” explains Alex Souza.

“Getting Dropbox wasn’t initially about reducing costs. It was about focusing on mobility for employees. But this project has ended up being extremely advantageous for us in financial and information security terms.”

Rodolpho Zabisky, CFO, MZ Group

THE SOLUTION

Working from anywhere

Today, all 250 MZ employees use Dropbox Business to collaborate with each other and their clients. Whether working on presentations, press releases or other documents, employees can share Dropbox links, which are updated in real time. The Dropbox badge lets multiple people edit the same document without accidentally creating different versions. “The notifications help a lot when we have a team working simultaneously on the same document, especially with regards to making comments” says Zabisky. Once they’ve finished working on a document, the employees send the final versions to clients via a Dropbox link by email or WhatsApp. “The clients have been really singing the praises of the WhatsApp integration with Dropbox” says Souza.
With the Dropbox mobile app, MZ employees are able to access and share files more quickly when they're on the go. Instead of wasting time trying to dial into the VPN, they can focus on providing great service to clients. “If a client asks for a file, you can send it from your mobile phone in your car” says Zabisky. “This is great in Brazil, where we lose a lot of time being stuck in traffic”.
The admin console makes it easy for MZ executives to make sure that client confidential data is shared only with the intended recipients.
“We concluded that Dropbox was more secure than other data security and protection measures” says Souza. “We wouldn’t have adopted Dropbox if we didn’t have guaranteed data security and confidentiality”.

“We concluded that Dropbox was more secure than other data security and protection measures. We wouldn’t have adopted Dropbox if we didn’t have guaranteed data security and confidentiality.”

Alex Souza, IT Coordinator, MZ Group

THE RESULTS

Saving time and money

By rolling out Dropbox, MZ have been able to become more efficient, freeing up more time for employees to focus on client accounts. Alex estimates that employees are collectively saving nearly 1,000 hours a week by accessing their files on Dropbox instead of the old VPN system. “And that’s just VPN” says Souza. “There have been other savings across the organisation”.
MZ say IT savings from Dropbox are also approaching six figures annually from avoiding spending on new servers, as well as licences for VPN and other backup software. “Getting Dropbox wasn’t initially about reducing costs – it was about focusing on mobility for employees” says Zabisky. “But this project has ended up being extremely advantageous for us in financial terms”.
With more than 600 clients and as a leader among Brazil’s publicly traded companies, MZ can’t afford to stop working when disaster strikes. During a three-hour power outage, Dropbox Business allowed employees to continue focusing on their accounts. “With Dropbox, people continue working with their notebooks or turn on their phones, and the company doesn’t stop for a second” says Souza.